In the last two weeks, the Hubs and I have engaged in the energy-sapping double-whammy of “garage sale” and “kid party” over back-to-back weekends. The kid party, complete with margaritas and a bounce house, was a blast.

Disney Princess Bounce House Extraordinaire

The garage sale? Oh, the garage sale…

It’s taken me more than a week to recover from that one. Seriously. I was traumatized.

It wasn’t just the cleaning, although that was enough to throw my back out and send me running to Facebook for back remedies (thanks, y’all).

It wasn’t the manic husband, although he got that MacGyver look in his eyes: Ooooh, a box. I could take back eight square inches of garage floor by selling the contents of this box!

His brother helped him, and he was even more driven: If it is in a box, it is for SALE. My head is down and I will not notice those were my mother’s silver candlesticks, or that these frames have my niece’s baby pictures in them.

I was minding the kid when they finished Friday night, so I never got to review the sale items. Then those two scamps decided to let me sleep in (you know till 7:30 am). They got started two hours before I got out there on Saturday.

Silly, silly me. I should have booby-trapped the freaking front door.

When I opened the front door (before coffee), the first thing my eyes landed on were my mother’s angels. They are sweet ceramic kissing angels that had been packed lovingly in a box until the Little Bean was to the age where she wouldn’t accidentally break them.

Only now they were balanced on a pile of garage sale crap with someone asking me how much they were. That was the first time I said the words that scared the crap out of the men by the end of the day:

“I’m SO sorry. Those are not for sale.”

This was usually followed by a pissed off remark from the customer, mad that I took the (insert family heirloom) off their pile.

I didn’t get to that first cup of coffee till almost 10, and it’s a wonder nobody died.

It was a lo-o-o-ong day.

I have no idea how many heirlooms walked away, but I personally saved the angels, some silver candlesticks, two signed art works, three birthday presents, tons of family photos and some incredibly expensive custom-made items my husband was planning to sell for a buck.

Then there was the X-rated part, which thankfully happened before I woke up.

Note: Some of you might remember the Almost X-rated Garage Sale thrown by my mother and the Aunties in small-town Missouri. There were no “red covers” involved in my not-so-small-town SoCal garage sale. (Click that link for more on Red Covers.)

However, there was an incident with a box. A personal box, that was clearly labeled “MEOW.”

I didn’t expect to see the MEOW box tucked behind some charcoal on the front porch. I didn’t actually notice it until I got coffee in my hand. (I’d been living under the delusion that this box was tucked into the top of my closet.)

And before we go any further, you should know that I don’t own a cat. I’m allergic to cats.

The MEOW box is the toy box. The single-girl sexy pie box. The box you have your best friend grab and hide in the event of your death. There was no good reason why the MEOW box would be on the front porch.

So this conversation happened:

Me: [Taking deep breaths so as not to take the Hubs’ head off. Again.] *sips coffee* Honey, thanks for saving the MEOW box. I’d have died if anyone like your brother saw that.

Him: I don’t know if my brother saw it. It was chaos this morning. But two Latino men saw it, because one of them asked me how much it was.

Me: *shakes blood back into head* WHAT?

Him: Yes, one of the men waved me over, wiggled his eyebrows and said, “Es for the girls, yes?” I didn’t know what he meant until he started waving one of the vibrators.

Me: He waved— *covers face* Ohmigod. Ohmigod. Ohmigod.

Him: I thanked him, folded up the box and tossed it on the porch. His friend offered me ten bucks for the whole box, but I thought you might want to look in it first.

Me: Oh. My. Lord. DID YOUR BROTHER SEE ANY OF THIS?

Him: It’s been a madhouse out here. I don’t think he looked at anything. He just kept unpacking.

Me: I’ll be back in a minute. I need to add some liquor to this coffee.

I don’t know if I’ll ever recover from this garage sale. I do know we won’t be having another one unless I take a more active role. However the Hubs is happy because his garage looked like this when we were done.

What’s the craziest thing you’ve ever bought or sold at a garage sale? Enquiring minds love to know these things here at More Cowbell!

I’ve been MIA. My world was turvey-topsy for months. THEN, when I settled in PA and got back in my groove, I discovered SPAM stole most of the blogs I follow. It even ate this notice AFTER I yanked More Cowbell notifications from the Spam file.

When I finish goofing off composing pithy comments on Jenny’s site, I’ll access the linky-love and vote for you.

Jess, I was too shell-shocked to cry. I spent two hours racing around, trying to get all the not-for-sale stuff gathered up. I’m trying not to think about what was sold because there’s not a damn thing I can do about it.

Thanks for the happy birthday. Some day she will be very annoyed when she discovers all the things that are on this blog. But for now…it’s all about the laughter. 🙂

Two hours???!! You poor thing. I would’ve chewed Joe’s head off. Your hubby is lucky you fight clean. I’m still figuring this marriage thing out.

And I fully intend to write about any children we have, and….pretty much anyone I come into contact with is fair game. So, keep on keepin’ on! Thanks for the blog love, Tootsie! *mwah* We must get together this summer. I really hope that works out. Keep me posted!

Yep. I had to sell some stuff in between, but it seems like every time I made a circuit, I found new stuff. It was awful. Keep July 20-ish on your calendar for me if you can. That’s about the time we’ll be moseying toward Minneaopolis.

Numero uno (a compadre nod to the wink-eye dude): How exactly did he plan to present those toys to his (in)significant other? “We’ll have a great time with these. They’re used experienced.”

Which leads to a not-so-thoughty-thought I’ve had on occasion. Isn’t there a better way to collect on a money back guarantee for personal oxytocin-inducing devices than mailing them back? What do they do with them? Put them through a sanitizing cycle in a dishwasher and resell them? I’d think a pic of me someone pulverizing the device with an iron skillet would be a better option. GO GREEN! SAVE A REDWOOD TWIG! INSTAGRAM YOUR ‘RETURN’!

You know, you’re onto something here, Gloria. What DO they do with those returns? *beady stare at buzzing object people*

Frankly, I was pretty happy to know I even still owned some of those items. I put that box away when we moved and it’s been more than 4 years. This is the kind of old stuff that becomes new again, IYKWIM.

Oh my heck! LOLOL We did one garage sale a million years ago. I vowed then never again. We had people at our house at six in the morning, even though the paper said 8!!! We truck everything to Goodwill when we are over stuff. And yes, there is weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth. The hubs is a clinger. lol

I have to confess that of the two of us, I am much more of a clinger than my husband. The kid obviously takes after both of us (a minimalist like her father and a capitalist like her mother) since she keeps asking me if she can sell her toys to get more money for her piggy bank. It’s impressive.

Oh the garage sale. I’m so done with garage sales. My dad had a garage sale for 6 weekends in a row. You see he sold his house and was moving and severely downsizing. Nothing interesting to speak of, but my God people will sure spend money on junk that should be thrown in the garbage. My dad made almost $2,000 selling things like jars of greasy nuts and bolts, garden hoses with no nozzles, extension cords with no plug ins, cracked hard hats. $2,000!!!! For shit!

Let’s just say, I was amazed and never so glad to be done with garage sales.

I’m glad you managed to salvage a few things. And the naughty girl box? Holy cow. That’s just ridiculous. Put those things away my dear. And who buys a used vibrator anyway? That’s kind of – ewwweeee.

I’m crying now, from laughing so hard! I would absolutely die if that happened over here, especially since it would probably be my sons helping with the garage sale. The MEOW box. Good name for it! And possibly the title of a book!

August, my back just didn’t like me vaccuuming like a madwoman. That’s how I did it. The garage sale was the least of it. However, I immediately went back to all my PT exercises, and that seems to be making the difference. 🙂

I hope GirlBoner and the Happiness Project both sweep your categories!!!

Oh that is too funny. There was a garage sale going on across the street a few years ago and the lady told me that everything on the right hand side was her ex boyfriends and it was going for cheap to take a look. I ended up getting a leather jacket for hubby, a brand new CD walkman and 5 brand new CD’s, a brand new black and gold fleece throw and a pair of table lamps….all for $10.00.

lol She sold her ex’s stuff after she found out he was cheating and kicked him out and he didn’t come back for his stuff for over a month.

Dang! I got busy and missed the same-day opportunity to add comments. Guess I’ll have to save them for a blog of my own and pray no one in the family reads my blog. Because…

One comment involved an oxytocin-inducing contraption with an odd name. We’ll call him Dill Dough. Seems appropriate. Looked like a pickle. A big pickle, with two sacks, and a suction cup to attach to the side of a bathtub. Nooooooooo!!! Had images of the suction cup releasing, throwing me off and onto the tile floor, and knocking me out — for paramedics to find.

I am so itching to write about my experience with Dill.

But, what if my less free-thinking friends and family do read my blog? Oh! Duh! I could put that in a book.

Oh, Jenny! What I would give to have seen your face at that moment. It could have been worse, sweetie. You could have walked on the porch with your daughter and found the BIL rifling through the meow box, only to look up at you and wink. Now don’t yo feel better? 🙂